My List
First off, I cannot stress enough how much fun I had playing X-wing at Gencon. I met a lot of great people. A lot of them were impressed by my list and graciously gave me praise. It has been dubbed the Super Friends which is a better name and a much more positive connotation than what I originally called it: Troll Their Fire.
The Super Friends
Lando
-Han Solo
-Nien Numb
-Draw Their Fire
Trollbaca (Chewie)
-R2D2
-C3P0
-Falcon Title
-Draw Their Fire
Chewie is a tank and probably absorbed about 500 hits all tournament (Paul Heaver alone had the unfortunate pleasure of doing about 150 of them).
THURDSAY – NATIONAL QUALIFYING ROUNDS
On Thursday my list goes 5-2.
Notable mentions:
Tyler, who would go on to make the Top 8 on Saturday, absolutely crushed my list with his Defender (Vessery+HLC) list. I would have had no chance against him in the Top 8, but he had to withdraw to play in the Dust Tournament. Much respect to his innovative list and his ability to pilot a Defender to the top spots.
My other loss was to a guy named Michael—hailing all the way from Sweden—in Round 1. He had a tie swarm that would not enter the asteroid field but instead opted to just keep endlessly K-Turning on the edge. I should have just let the clock run and taken the tie, but I went after him. Afterwards I gave him an American Granola Bar and we discussed ingredients. Cool story, me.
I also narrowly beat a phantom/mini-swarm build that day. I was only able to kill the phantom because it landed on the asteroid chasing the Trollbaca tank, who with an evade action, C3P0, and R2D2 can negate up to a 3 hits per turn.
SATURDAY – NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Saturday was not easy. Z’s and Tie fighters, who found their way into almost every list, seemed impossible to kill with natural arrows all over the place. The only opponent who seemed to roll any significant amount of green blanks was Piqsid, whose Corran entirely checked out defensively when he played me. I was very glad to see him in the Top 8 later on despite this bit of bad luck.
I also played another phantom list. Once again, I am only able to kill the phantom because of an asteroid. Both Chewie and Lando were up to their usual shenanigans and each had one hull left. Incredible match and amazing opponent - Andrew, the regional champion of Ohio. Fun guy, great game. At one point a girl walks by and hits on him during the game while completely ignoring me. I feel as invisible as Andrew’s Whisper.
4-0 going into the final pre-lim game on Saturday, I get paired up with Paul Heaver. I help make a really dense field as usual. It comes down to his Han vs. my Chewie. He quickly learns the futility of shooting Trollbaca and uses PS11, boost, and a big base to run until time. The asteroid field is too dense to effectively cut him off and he is able to finish with the Mod Win as time is called. I have the choice of playing it safe and probably never catching him, or run through a dangerous field. I choose to play it safe, because with one “modified loss” I’m basically guaranteed to make the cut.
At the time of the cut, I end up 3 rd of 8, the highest of the 4 and 1’s.
The Top 8
Someone mentions they think I’m the only returning player from last year’s Top 8. I don’t know if it’s true, but I’m going to pretend it is. Don’t tell me otherwise
My first round I play against such a terrific person, James, who I actually hung out with on Thursday night. He’s got a solid list: fat-ish (shapely?) Han and a Z-swarm. Following a long break, we both make pretty many mistakes getting into it. I forget to use 3P0 and R2D2 some turns. He hits some rocks. We are both pretty out of it, but we start to pick it up near the end. It was a close a game and could have gone either way with the a few dice changes. Chewie survives with a few hull.
Top 4
Rematch against Paul. He is not looking forward to it, my list is a bit of a hard counter (understatement of the year). I am looking forward to it, given that I have an extra 15 or 30 minutes this time to help Chewie run down Han. After having to futilely chase after his Han for twenty minutes last game, I’m glad I get another chance to finish the job. I make the lanes bigger in the field. Its ends up Chewie vs. Han again but I am able to cut him off this time. Chewie is still invincible, which helps. Eventually I work through his own evade token + Threepio to win.
But I want to take a second to talk about Paul. This is the world champion. He comes to nationals with a bigger target on his back than anyone. There is probably more pressure on him to perform than anyone. Yet with all that, he took being pretty much mathematically unable to hurt my ship without a shred of frustration. He was smiling and having fun the whole way through. Paul’s not only an amazing player - this guy is a class act.
Top 2
As explained, I’ve had trouble with phantoms all weekend. While you can build a Falcon list to attempt to hard-counter Phantoms, you sacrifice a lot of flexibility and it turns match-ups against other Falcons, Shuttles, and Rebel Swarms into a real uphill battle. While my “Super Friends” struggles against heavily defended targets, it’s at least got a shot lasting long enough in the attrition war to hopefully see the Phantom through a bad green roll, and it does so without giving up too much in other match-ups against tough low-agility opponents. The only two Phantoms that I killed on Thur/Sat so far were a direct or indirect result of asteroids. So I was not looking forward to playing a phantom in the final. Without gunner, high PS, or a swarm of attacks, I know I had my work cut out for me.
This is the part where I have to apologize. Anyone of you who stayed or are planning to watch the TC video, I am sorry. I was not able to give you a gripping edge of your seat game like last year’s Worlds. I have two shots at Whisper. I throw seven dice and with my 3.5 (Han Solo crew) offensive actions get seven hits. He gets six symbols on eight evade dice. I do one shield of damage. Had he done the inverse and got two symbols out of eight evade dice, I would have won. Or had he got three symbols and I had caused a good crit with Chewie, I might have won. Or had he been forced to spend his focus on the first attack, and then rolled all eyes or blanks on the second, yada, yada, yada... These results were all less likely I’m sure, but a chance none the less, and probably the best one I had. I also have the next round of combat where if he’s down to one or two hull, I can throw a focused four dice Chewie shot at him and he will have lost his evade bumping. Unfortunately Chewie takes so much damage (including arrowing a one hit whisper attack to a 5 hit whisper gunner attack) that I have to throw an evade on Chewie just so he survives to see another attack. The wookie needs to get 3-4 natural hits to have any sort of chance, but gets 1.
People may question why I shot the phantom. First of all, I’m fairly certain it was the only ship in TL range. Secondly, I knew after weathering one attack from a stressed Fel I could make the interceptor bump and he’d be out of the fight for two turns (which he was). Also, I could fly past Yorr after killing Whisper and it would be only Fel trying to damage Trollbaca, a near impossible feat. Then after dealing with Fel I could k-turn behind Yorr and draft the rest of the game.
But the best laid plans of droids and wookies often go awry. I fail to kill the phantom, and am left with a fleeing Chewie with one hull. I used R2-D2 at this point, not because I thought for one second a shield on Chewie would turn the game around, but because I wanted Chewie to be dealt the final blow by a friend (a la Lenny & George style), but alas. R2-D2 just doesn’t have it in his warm little robotic heart. Chewie is killed by the Imps moments later.
I cannot emphasize how much fun I had or how nice and supportive the community was. So many people came up, took pictures of my list, and offered praise for its originality and for thinking outside the box.
Jonathan, another player, commented to my brother (he and I always make our lists together) that the unconventional lists that excelled at Gencon are changing the way people think about the game. This may have been the best compliment I received all weekend. I don’t know if we are deserving of such praise, Jonathan, but thank you very much.
Another awesome guy I met from Kansas City told me he and his friends thought I looked like a young Peter Mayhew. LOL! I guess if you play Chewie enough you begin to look like him, which helps explain why that girl ignored me for Andrew…
Alex Davy and Frank Brooks were amazing hosts. Their enthusiasm, passion, and humor was a treat.
And then there was the crowd behind me who, including my brother, my friends, and some people I had just met, stayed and watched until the very end. I’m glad and honored I got to shake a lot of your hands and thank you for staying, I honestly only wish I could have given a more enjoyable show.
It was an amazing night. I couldn’t have asked for anything else from an X-wing tournament. Thank you all!
~Jeff Berling
